This weekend will be the first trip that I'll lead a group to Guacimo. In this city we take a bus for about 2 hours to get there and we get to have a look into how Tico's live. Four students and I will sleep in a Costa Rican home, eat Costa Rican food, and serve in the local church that they have there. My first time ever visiting Costa Rica 3 years ago I went to this town of Guacimo and God used that experience to begin molding my heart for missions. A lot of the people here don't have a whole lot of anything but what really got to me was how happy they are with what little they have. Mama Maria (the house we stay at) has one of the biggest hearts I've ever seen. She lives with her three sons, her daughter and her 3 children but when we come they make room for us. I became really good friends with her son Carlos and am really looking forward to reconnecting with him while there.
We've been busy preparing our upcoming trip to Panama along with a ton of other things that fill up our weeks. On Tuesday at around 1AM we're hopping on a bus and leaving on the long journey to Panama. We'll be there from Tuesday and come home on Friday. Part of the reason for going is with our Visa's we can't be in Costa Rica for more than 90 days and with this trip it will break that up.
More importantly we found connections with a missionary family that lives in the town we're going and they hooked us up with a few places we can serve in our short trip over there. We'll have the opportunity to serve at a retirement home that has about 20 people living there in poor conditions. I'm hoping in our short stay while being there we can make relationships and have the opportunity to share the Word of God with them. Also while we're there there's an indigenous tribe that lives on the island and we're hoping to connect with their kids school and hang out with them as well.
Most of the pictures I post are from my ministry in Tirrases. There I've been continuing to build relationships with the kids in that area. It's definitely rewarding to see each Saturday morning we pull into the city the excitement the kids show to want to hangout and play with us. I think I'm getting pretty good at becoming a human jungle gym for them.
This past Sunday we had the biggest attendance at our english church plant Guadalupe Gathering Place. We had over 160 people there on Sunday. It's really neat seeing how the Lord's been working there drawing people in to hear the true gospel. Continue to pray that God will keep bringing out Costa Ricans and others out to our church and to be with our pastors and staff within as well.
Prayer Requests:
- continued growth in the students and staffs lives
- Guadalupe Gathering Place (our english church plant)
- our trip to Panama next week
- for the hearts of the students I work/live with everyday
Praying with the group of teen guys that come out
Thanks again to everyone that has been supporting me down here both in prayer and financially. If you feel led to want to financially partner with me you can click here.
